Personal Finance 101

The Personal Finance 101 presentation  given by Debbie Squier-Bernst to business women at Paro Centre for Women's Enterprise answered some of the following questions:

Registered Retirement products:

Is it better to contribute to an RRSP, borrow funds to put into an RRSP, or pay down debts, in particular credit card debt at high interest rates, or pay down a mortgage? How does one decide?

Deregistering an RRSP: 

Needed some cash to pay down debts, thought they would just cash out some RRSP'S, we're surprised and unaware of not only the withholding percentage but also having to claim the amount as income, again what are the costs?

The Cost of Credit card or deferred purchases: 

How to understand the interest rate and interest fee calculations, how long and expensive can a purchase be when it's carried for a month (or years) at a high interest rate?

Pay as you go / Rent to own / Don't pay for 1 year -

How much does that T.V. cost  anyways? 

Payday Loans:

How are the fees and interest calculated? What are the fees, interest rates on payday loans?

Calculators for determining credit card costs for making minimum payments, or determining how long it will take to pay off credit card balances are available at www.bankrate.com

There is a fantastic Mortgage Qualifier calculator at www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca which will also calculate TDSR and GDSR the same as any lending institution would.

If you would like to have some of these questions answered check out  Personal Finance 101

Would you like to learn about the different types of credits and the associated borrowing costs?

Here's an Example of the Cost of Financing a $300 loan for 14 days using various types of credit.